Blake Griffin and Chris Paul: Only hope for Los Angeles Clippers against San Antonio Spurs: NBA Update
As the Los Angeles Clippers brace themselves to take on the mighty San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 of the Western Conference semi finals, the key for them still lies with their two All-Stars in Blake Griffin and Chris Paul.
After an intense and physically challenging seven game series against the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round, this seems highly improbable however. Griffin is struggling to recover from a knee injury and to go along with it,
he also suffered an ankle sprain in the Game 1 loss, which limited his playing time to only 28 minutes.
Paul also was not that great on the night as well. He missed 10 of his 13 field goal attempts and all six of his points came in the first quarter.
Speaking on the performance of Game 1 after practice on Wednesday, Paul said that he and his team mates tried hard but were not able to be effective where as the Spurs kept on piling shots;
"I didn't play effective," Paul said. "I've got to come out and play a better game. I was just missing. I came in today and got a nice workout in. Hopefully it'll work for me tomorrow."
As important as these two players are to the Clippers chances, so are the supporting party. But, the injuries to some of them have further depleted the Clippers chances. Caron Butler is playing with a fractured non shooting hand
and Nick Young has a root canal scheduled on Wednesday.
There is also the fact that Clippers players are new to this stage of the post season. They will no doubt look to come out strongly in game 2 but will that be enough to trouble the on fire Spurs, who set a franchise playoff record
by making 13 three pointers in game and were also very clearly able to out manoeuvre the young Clips with their ball movement throughout the night.
The main thing for the Clips will be to make good on the scoring opportunities whenever they get them. The Spurs will not let Paul and company run pick and rolls, nor will they give any room to Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan
to reach the rim easily. This puts the scoring burden on CP3 and there can only an extent to which he can perform especially when Tony Parker is at his face.
If ever there was a time for Blake Griffin to step up his game, it is now. He has got to start making jumpers and stretch the court for the rest of the team-mates especially Paul.
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